The Pits

Tuesday 8th November 2011 9:44 pm

That I might supplicate His aid

God persecutes with pox and plague;

to scoffs and mocks of atheists

He’s smothered in these gulfs and pits

dug forty feet by sixteen wide

where corpses plug the waterline

and rise to choke a mouth replete

with sermons only He can speak,

beseeching wickedness repent

or sure eternal punishment.

The bellmen and the buriers

bear witness to His heaviness,

the cold embrace promiscuous

and haunt the nightly whisperers,

the dying, drugged and blanketed

spot death and jump in after it.

The Pie Tavern: from in my cups

I contemplate this bitter stuff;

a game of bluff, God’s nemesis,

for what torments are worse than this?

Comments

<Deleted User> (9635)

Wed 9th Nov 2011 23:54

really enjoyed this ray

<Deleted User> (6315)

Wed 9th Nov 2011 18:42

In late (my wol has been playing up but seems a little better now) WoW Ray...thought provoking and strong .. super work.. :)

Ray Miller

Wed 9th Nov 2011 11:08

Thanks, Isobel, Dave, Steve, John. The poem was inspired by a book I'm very fond of, Journal of a Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe.The narrator tells of fortitude in the face of hardship and suffering yet can't help but chide humanity from time to time for its wickedness and lack of faith.
I suppose I understand and accept the need for suffering, but only in principle,only theoretically.
Ill look up those poets, Steve, thanks.Funny you should mention Eliot. The Defoe book inspired another poem of mine, His Works, which someone likened to Eliot.
The Pie Tavern is a pub in the book that the narrator retires to after some particularly distressing scenes. I wanted to include it because it's such a great name for a pub!
I guess it depends how you pronounce "torments", John.

John Coopey

Wed 9th Nov 2011 09:28

Moi aussi. Very powerful, Ray. I read this a few times and found some avenue of image new easch time.
I don't understand though the reference to the Pie Tavern (unless it's Mrs Miggins's from Blackadder!).
Also, I know you know what you're doing so you must have a reason for inverting the iambic rhythm into trochaic for "for what torments". This last line didn't quite work rhythmically for me.

Dave Bradley

Wed 9th Nov 2011 00:13

Powerful. Perplexity and anger in a form that works. Two books come to mind. The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis (1940). A serious attempt to cover the subject by one of the twentieth century's brightest Christians. It reads well and has sold well, but years later he admitted it was too superficial. And Silence by Shusaku Endo (1966), said to be one of the century's greatest novels. Endo was that rare thing, a Japanese Catholic. He wrestled with God's silence in the face of suffering and in the end could find no answer. If there is a God, as I believe, then there must be an answer, but it is unimaginable.

Isobel

Tue 8th Nov 2011 22:20

This is very powerful Stuff, Ray. Understanding the existence of suffering is one of the hardest things for a believer to explain. In fact it is beyond explanation.

The simplistic idea that the afterlife is some reward or penalty is also hard to believe. You are tackling the big questions in this poem...

I love the tight construction of it and the language you have used.

If I were to plead the case for God - I would say that his image and public persona is one created by man - ironically...

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The Pits

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